Trucks with a load carrying region such as a deck, tray, or trailer are often used to transport loads or other vehicles. However, the load or vehicle may shift during transportation and therefore should be secured to the load carrying region. The load is often secured using ropes, straps, or chains stretched over the load or part of the load and fastened to load anchors. It is often necessary to secure loads in other load carrying vehicles such as aircraft, ships, railway carriages, and the like.
There are a number of load anchors for use with load carrying regions of vehicles. For example, hooks or chains may be attached to the tray of a truck to provide anchors for the straps. Such attachments protrude into the load carrying region of the truck deck, tray, or trailer and can easily snag or catch the load as it is being moved on the tray.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,762,449 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,948,311 describe tie down assemblies for fitting in the side wall of the tray of a pickup truck. Due to the vertical orientations of their tongues or hooks, the size of the tie down assemblies, and the tongues or hooks having an aperture through which a pivot pin extends, the tie down assemblies have low load capacities, and are particularly unsuitable for accommodating any significant side loadings (loadings in a direction transverse to the plane of the hook or tongue in the embodiment shown in those documents).
U.S. Pat. No. 5,749,686 describes a container stop for a railcar well. The stop is mounted within a side wall of the railcar well, and has an elongate stop member which is moveable from a position in which it is received within the side wall of the railcar to a position in which it extends diagonally from the side wall of the railcar and engages in a hole in the floor of the railcar well. The elongate stop member includes holes through which a pivot shaft extends, to pivotally mount the stop member. When the stop member is in the position in which it is received in the side wall, it does not sit flush with the side wall. While that would not cause any significant difficulty when the device is wall mounted, if the device was mounted in a floor, items could catch on the edges of the device as it does not sit flush with the surface in which it is mounted. Further, due to the pivot shaft extending through holes in the elongate stop member, side loading capacity is reduced, and it is necessary for the elongate member to engage in an aperture in the railcar floor to provide sufficient side loading. In order to release the elongate member from its retracted position, it is necessary for an operator to have access to the outer side of the side wall, to release a latch member. Again, while that would not cause too much difficulty in the case of a railcar which has low side walls, it could cause difficulties for some other applications.
A lightweight hold down assembly for a wheel chair is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,955,847.
It is an object of at least preferred embodiments of the present invention to provide a load anchor which goes some way towards ameliorating at least one of the disadvantages outlined above, and/or which at least provides the public with a useful choice.